SESSION OF THE ALL-RUSSIA CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. DECEMBER 1 (14), 1917

Published:Published on December 3 (16), 1917 in the newspaperNovaya ZhiznNo. 192.

      Printed from the newspaper text.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 36,

      page458.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

SPEECH ON THE QUESTION OF SETTING UP
	       A SUPREME ECONOMIC
COUNCIL[1]

NEWSPAPER REPORT

Leninspeaks in defence of the Soviet draft, pointing
out that the Supreme Economic Council cannot be reduced
to a parliament, but must be the same kind of fighting organ
for combating the capitalists and landowners in the economy
as the Council of People’s Commissars is in politics.

[1]Thequestion of setting up a Supreme Economic Council (S.E.C.)
was raised directly after the October Revolution. On October 
26 or 27 (November 8 or 9), 1917, a meeting of the Central Council
of the Petrograd factory committees in which Lenin took part
discussed the project for a governing economic body. In his speechat an enlarged meeting of the Petrograd Trade Union Council
on November 9 (22), Lenin drew attention to the need to create
machinery for running the Soviet economy and said that
preparations for the establishment of such organisations were already
under way. The draft for the organisation of a supreme economic
body was worked out by a special commission set up by the
Council of People’s Commissars.

TheBolshevik group of the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee discussed the matter and stressed the need to make the
Supreme Economic Council a militant organ of the working-class
dictatorship by investing it with legislative powers. On
December 1 (14) the question was taken up by the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee. The Left S.R.s demanded an enlargement
of the S.E.C.’s peasant section and insisted that the Council
should be under the All-Russia Central Executive Committee
instead of the Council of People’s Commissars, as the draft proposed.
This was opposed by Lenin and the amendments were, voted down
by a majority. The decree on the Supreme Economic Council was
approved and published inGazeta Vremennogo Rabochego i
Krestyanskogo Pravitelstva(Gazette of the Provisional Workers’
and Peasants’ Government) No. 25 on December 5 (18).

Lenindevoted much attention to organising the work of the
Supreme Economic Council, directed its activity and spoke at
congresses of economic councils. The question of organising its
activity was repeatedly discussed by the Council of People’s
Commissars. Thus, a government decision of December 23, 1917
(January 5, 1918) said that the S.E.C. must be transformed from
a discussion body into one actually directing industry. On
January 19 (February 1), 1918, the government discussed the question of
the S.E.C.’s activity and the need to eliminate duplication in
the work of the S.E.C. and economic commissariats and
departments, and adopted a circular binding the S.E.C. and all
commissariats to work in close contact with each other. The draft
circular had been amended and edited by Lenin (seeLenin Miscellany 
XXI, pp. 122–23).

Whenlarge-scale industry was fully nationalised, the S.E.C.
became its organ of management.